


Kiss

by starrystarrytrouble



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, F/M, Kissing in the Rain, Medical Professionals, Romance, Rough Kissing, Slow Burn, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26378095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrystarrytrouble/pseuds/starrystarrytrouble
Summary: Ethan has a revelation after the events of chap 11.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Kudos: 28





	Kiss

Thunder echoed out across Boston but she barely recognised it over the loud grind of the coffee machine. She could see why he liked it here, the bustle of Derry Roasters was comforting, the chatter of the customers and the barista calling out orders, an ambience she could get lost in.

And she needed comfort. It was two weeks since the Senator had been admitted to Edenbrook and for a night, her entire future seemed an implausible hypothetical.

Ever since that day, her world flipped completely.

Curled over on one of the sofas, Eve took a second to admire the figure sitting opposite her. The same figure who’d taken care of her the last few weeks as if she was the most precious thing in this universe. Who was a constant by her bedside as she recovered. Who’d honoured his promise to hold her every day.

The same man who said her name like a prayer in the stillness of the night.

He was concentrating on a medical journal, eyes glittering under his glasses and it was becoming hard for her _not_ to stare at him.

“All the coffee places in the world, and we’re both right here,” she said brightly.

“Excuse me?” Ethan looked up from his book.

“Don’t you think it’s insane we’re here in this place?”

“I think it’s insane I told you I come to this place.”

He watched Eve put down her book, and he immediately recognized it as the popular science book that had gone missing from his bedside table a few days ago.

“Hear me out,” she had a familiar look of complete determination on her face. “Our species has been on the planet 6 million years. Modern humans evolved 200,000 years ago. Civilisation is 6,000 years old….”

“I know that. You’re reading _my_ book, Rookie.”

She ignored him.

“So, don’t you think it’s exciting that we’re somehow both here right now? When I might not even exist for another 200 years and you could have been a ye olde…peasant…or something and we’d never be destined to meet.”

“Peasant? That is ridiculous. I…”

“We could have been living on opposite parts of the world. Or born years apart.” She paused to bite back a smile.

“ _More_ years apart. Think about it. There’s literally millions of combinations of lives I could be leading where I never come across the name Ethan Ramsey. Where it’s impossible for us to be sitting here, drinking coffee and reading, _supposedly_ waiting for labs to come back on my pesky patients when really you just want me to take a break.”

Ethan closed his book with a snap and sighed.

“I think it’s pretty special. Recently, I’ve learnt to appreciate these things.” Eve bit her lip and swirled the spoon around her espresso cup.

“I’d be nice if I were you. Think about it, if any one factor, one variable, was different then we wouldn’t be us. What if I never read your book and so I didn’t pick Edenbrook? Or I didn’t go to med school at all? There would be no point in us meeting because I wouldn’t be _me_.”

He felt a pang at her last words. After being so close to losing her once, he didn’t want to entertain the idea of some cosmic imbalance taking her away again, however unrealistic.

“You’re right. It is special.” He moved his hand over to hers, as discreetly as he could in full view of the whole café, still aware of their need to be careful.

Lacing his fingers around hers he rubbed her palm gently as she stared up at him through her lashes. He broke apart reluctantly with a smile and turned back to his book.

“Did you notice today’s date?” she asked softly.

“Of course I did, it’s…”

Ethan froze.

The realization came tumbling down.

In the midst of recent events, he’d forgotten.

 _It was exactly a year ago._

He visualised the date printed on the plane ticket to Miami. Twelve months ago, they’d walked through the halls of the convention centre, desperate for a cure for Naveen. He’d gambled with the hospital’s future, signed his integrity away to big pharma and then, signed something else away entirely.

The balcony, the salty bay air, the ocean as it lilted away his clarity and the way the waves ushered him closer to her. _Her._

He was completely lost in the memory.

The mysterious glint of devotion in her eyes when their lips first met and her absolute belief in him that carried him every step since.

What if he hadn’t lost his mind in that one moment and flung every rational thought he had aside.

Like everything with the Senator, if her life hadn’t been on the line, where would they be now.

Was it guaranteed that they would have ended up together or would he have found another way to delay, no, _prevent_ it outright. _I’ve always thought we should be together_ , she said to him in moments she believed might be her last. Something about her assuredness, her confidence in their inevitability had led him to believe that that’s exactly what they were. Logically, there was nothing inevitable about it at all.

It was a lie, the worst trick.

All the thoughts he buried away and tried to hide from himself rushed on top of him, pinning him in place.

What kind of person was he that it had taken her to be in danger for him to wake up and realize the fragility of their existence. For him to stop asking her to stay away and pull her near. And what kind of life would he have now if he’d hesitated a few moments longer on that Miami balcony?

He’d lived in that world for years. He knew exactly what it was like. Stoical devotion to medicine and science was his once constant drumbeat that she’d replaced entirely with her own music.

Every emotion he felt a year ago rushed back and the fear of losing her again surrounded him.

He stared at her parted lips, moving up to her dazzling green eyes shining back at him with curiosity.

He knew in that second, he was done with it all.

“Ethan?”

“Let’s go.”

Standing up swiftly, he stalked straight out into the heavy rain, without a look back. 

The downpour was unrelenting, drenching her through her clothes within seconds as she chased after him. He stormed on, in the opposite direction to the hospital, and she struggled to keep up with his broad steps, cursing herself every time she stepped in a heavy puddle. A small shiver crept over her as she followed him around a corner.

“Hey wait! Ethan, where the hell are you going?”

He stopped as she caught up with him down an empty alley.

“Wait, are you mad at me?!”

Lighting shot across the sky, illuminating his face, his blue eyes searing through her.

“Of course not,” he grabbed her tightly by the waist, “I just had to get out of there.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to do _this_.”

He pushed her against the cold brickwork and slipped one hand up onto her bare back. The heat of his palm against her frozen skin caused her to gasp as he held her face and brought his lips over hers in a fierce kiss.

She relented fast, her body arching into the heat of his desperately. She pulled him on top of her closer and closer until there was no distance between them, their wet clothes entangled, water from his face dripping onto her, her mouth parting his harder, aching to taste more of him.

Thunder boomed out and she jumped slightly, forcing them apart. She looked up with a coy smile, raindrops clustered at her temple. He pictured her in a blue gown, the twinkle of the Miami shoreline in the distance, looking at him exactly the same way moments before he’d first given in to her.

The rain beat down faster and he held her close again, running his lips down her neck slowly, marking her outline. Moving back up to her mouth he pressed urgently against her, his hands lost in her body, every touch confirming what he wished he’d known from the second they’d met.

_This was inevitable. It had to be._


End file.
